Former Kraft plant considered for possible marijuana factory
Wednesday, October 16, 2013 8:53:41 EDT AM
COBOURG - A local real estate broker says he is applying for a federal marijuana plant-growing licence and the former Kraft operation on William Street in Cobourg is one of three potential sites he and partners are investigating.
Lindsay and a location in Northern Ontario are also being researched, Michal Hasek said in an exclusive interview with Northumberland Today.
"There's close to 200,000 square feet" in the former Cobourg food manufacturing plant and Hasek says his "favourite place is the JELL-O lab."
Should the facility be licensed, the operation would employ 40 to 100 people, he said.
With the Canadian Government's decision to phase out small, home-grown operations and replace them with large secure medical marijuana operations, the minimum size for a licence to grow is 13,000 square feet, Hasek said. The Cobourg facility has several areas of 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot enclosed configurations.
"The (medical marijuana) factory has a number of strict restrictions and they include regulations that govern security…. There's 40 pages of them," Hasek said.
Access and egress are among those areas requiring very detailed and strict operations.
"Workers don't wear their own clothes… but outfits like hazardous material suits," Hasek said.
There are strong, tight regulations related to workers' health, growing operations, harvesting, packaging and delivery. The operation has to be indoors and have around-the-clock security.
Like electronics factories, this facility would have to be very clean and well ventilated because of the "toxic materials, gas, dust and growing chemicals," Hasek said.
It would be a sophisticated scientific operation and the group is looking for botanists and chemists.
Hasek anticipates an investment in the ballpark of $1 million to get a facility up and running and if Cobourg is chosen, and licensed by the government, he predicted plants will be growing by this coming March.
"I'm a venture capitalist," Hasek said, with investments in software in Brazil and mining in Sudbury (WSN Inc.) "The return is very good (with medical marijuana plants) and the growth potential is right off the map."
The federal government predicts huge growth in the number of people using marijuana to control pain and other health issues.
Hasek, who has previously used similar synthetic canabinoids, cesamet, for a former health condition now in remission, knows firsthand the pain relief that such substances can provide.
Overall costs and funding will determine which location or locations will proceed but Hasek said he is confident an application would be made to the federal government within two to four weeks.
"We could become a major employer for the region," Hasek said.
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